Air passengers should expect some delays and cancellations as Jetstar services recover after the carrier grounded dozens of planes due to a global software problem.
The issue led to the cancellation of 90 Jetstar flights in Australia on Saturday, with 34 of 85 of the company’s A320/1 aircraft identified to have the anomaly.
Aircraft engineers rushed to fix the issue, which left thousands of Australians stranded at airports around the nation.
“We’re expecting all affected aircraft to be ready to return to service overnight, allowing flights to resume as planned on Sunday,” a Jetstar spokeswoman said on Saturday.
“However, there may be some flow-on delays or cancellations on Sunday as our network fully recovers.”
Engineering teams were deployed to airports primarily on the east coast to reverse a software upgrade on affected planes, Jetstar head of flying operations Tyrone Simes said.
Mr Simes said the repairs took between two to three hours for each aircraft, and he expected the works to finish on Saturday with the potential for some minor disruption on Sunday.
European plane manufacturer Airbus had ordered immediate precautionary action from operators of a significant number of A320 planes in service across the globe after discovering “intense solar radiation may corrupt data critical to the functioning of flight controls”.
The issue was discovered after a US JetBlue flight made an emergency landing after the plane made a sudden uncommanded drop in altitude on October 30.
More than 6000 aircraft were affected by the alert, accounting for more than half of Airbus’s global A320 family fleet.
Australia’s aviation safety regulator was aware of the issue affecting the A320 family of aircraft globally.
“We are in contact with major airlines and confident they are acting quickly to minimise disruptions and ensure aircraft can be returned to service safely,” a spokesman said.
Melbourne Airport chief of aviation Jim Parashos had spoken to many travellers, especially schoolies, who had been planning to head to Byron Bay or the Gold Coast.
“We appreciate their frustration, but they’ve been very understanding,” he said.
Jetstar said it would contact customers if there are any further disruptions.
Qantas and Virgin Airlines have been unaffected by the software problem.